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Sunday, January 17, 2010

I’m An Atheist

Science uses non science to support itself. Without reading further, can you answer why that statement is true?

Answer: Science itself is based on philosophy. Atheist driven science is based on bad philosophy.

Here's why.

First, To say, as one atheist said on his blog that “Science is the only objective source of truth,” is to make a philosophical statement.

Second, To say that “Science is the only objective source of truth,” is not just a philosophical statement, it’s bad philosophy.

Here’s why.

“Science is the only objective source of truth,” is a truth statement, but it’s NOT scientific truth. The statement itself cannot be proven by science.

Guess what that means?

Atheists who believe “Science is the only objective source of truth,” are believing a self-defeating statement; they’re believing a self-defeating statement upon which atheist driven science itself is based.

It’s unreasonable.

It’s incoherent.

It’s illogical.

It’s atheism at its best.

Here’s the truly sad part. When atheists read this, they will simply say,

“I don’t have to be reasonable. I’m an atheist. I’m a free thinker. I can believe whatever I want.”

23 comments:

Science isn't truth. Science is the observation of phenomena and the attempt to explain them to the best of our ability. At best, science is a pursuit of truth. Only truth is truth.

I trust that you would ignore anyone who quotes someone like Pat Robertson and dissects their poor choice of wording, and I think you'll find most atheists will do the same.

Also, science and atheism are completely unrelated, as I would have hoped you would gather from all the scientists who are theists (some of whom you quote, though you would need to blog for centuries to cover them all). Saying that science and atheism are linked is as arbitrary and saying science and homosexuality are linked, or even that science and religion are linked.

1) A scientist who is a theist is searching for the cause of the universe. Because, according to current evidence the scientist knows that nothing material existed at the singularity, s/he will at least consider the possibility of something from outside of or beyond nature was the cause.

2) A scientist who is an atheist is searching for the cause of the universe. Because, according to current evidence the scientist knows that nothing material existed at the singularity, s/he will say, "It doesn't matter what current evidence says. Some day we will know that there was a material cause OR we will discover that there can be a material infinte. We will discover this because nothing BUT the material exists.

From a purely scientific stance, number two could not be state. Anthony Flew is an example of someone who practises "pure" science and shows a willingness, as Flew himself stated, "go where the evidence goes."

However, science that has been influenced by atheism has no choice BUT to agree with number two.

I remember when I was sworn in as a scientist. I had to lay my hand on the works of Darwin and swear to never "follow the evidence" to the great God of the Gaps, YHWH. I had to give up praying for and scouring the holy books for the answer to questions and start doing experiments and making observations. A sad day. We all know how the Bible actually contained the instructions for the first television.

And I guess you would consider that to be a pretty good reply? Something pretty profound or at least logical; something that explains or makes sense of what I say is the atheists only option in point number two?

Or perhaps you were one of the 14-year-old males who responded to my post "Endless Possibilites"?

No it doesn't, but a lot of scientists who are atheists believe it does - hence the connection.

You may not be making a connection between atheism and science Ginx, but I assure you, most atheists do.

When the evidence points to something beyond nature and scientists draw conclusions based on their pre existing materialistic world-view, and not upon the evidence, then someone (read atheists who are scientists) is making the connection.

Since the beginning of human curiosity, we have always placed a huge emphasis on supernatural agents. "How does the sun move across the sky" we asked. The answer, of course, was that there was a sun god that pulled the sun behind a chariot. "What causes thunder and lightning?" again, the answer was supernatural, "Thor and Zeus cause thunder and lightning." For every problem we came across, instead of actually investigating it, we came up with a supernatural explanation. Today, many people follow the same line of thinking and make up a Creator God for the answer to the question "why does the universe exist?" Richard Dawkins has pointed out that the reason these answers are so deeply unsatisfying to the curious mind is because these answers were simply made up. Indeed, such answers are based on nothing more than the laziness, ignorance or lack of imagination of the person asking the question.

Even Isaac Newton, perhaps one of the most brilliant men to ever live, fell into this trap of supernatural thinking. He was able to explain universal gravitation and discovered the three laws of motion. But he was perplexed with the puzzle of why the planets shared the same orbital plane. Instead of actually putting his brilliant mind to the task of figuring it out, he threw in the towel and declared that it must be the work of God. Needless to say, Newton, like everyone else before him that had posited a supernatural explanation, was wrong.

It's interesting to point out that throughout the entire history of scientific investigation, not one supernatural explanation has ever been confirmed as true. But time and time again, every phenomenon we investigate turns out to have a naturalistic explanation. There is not one example of someone claiming that there must be a natural explanation for something, and then the answer turning out to be supernatural. This is very revealing.

So what does this have to do with arrogance? Well, as we can see, every single time that a supernatural cause has been proposed, it has turned out to be wrong. This mode of thinking has a 100% rate of failure. Not good! However, people continue to believe that their favorite god created the universe, created life, works miracles, answers prayers, ect. Believe it or not, but this mode of thinking is about as intellectually arrogant as you can possibly get. Someone who says "God did ________" is essentially saying "no amount of scientific investigation will ever solve this problem. I know that if we went a trillion years into the future, science will still have not discovered the answer to the question of ________." So basically, by holding supernatural beliefs, you have to claim that you are in fact, omniscient. The only possible way you could ever think that something was caused by something supernatural would be to have a perfect understanding of the workings of the universe, and then know that there is no naturalistic explanation. That's a big claim.

In order for the theist to even get close to proving that God really did ________, they have to not only have to disprove all the current scientific models of explanation, they have to disprove every possibly explanation that could ever be presented, even if that explanation won't be proposed for another 10 million years. Obviously, this is an impossibly task. Therefore, the claiming that "God did ________" is a logically impossible position to hold.

So what's more arrogant: an atheist claiming that he does not know the answer to something, but pointing out that given enough time, science has a 100% rate of success? Or, a theist claiming that they know that there will never ever be a naturalistic explanation to a question that they have, even though that mode of thinking has a 100% rate of failure?

I said:"we (meaning you and other materialists) don't know "yet" the material cause of the universe"

THAT is a gap in your knowledge.

Yes?

You do not have evidence that the cause of the universe is material BUT you are confident, so confident that a material answer will be found that you toss aside the current lack of evidence and simply claim, "Nature did it."

As far as you're concerned an answer that will probably come in the future is as good as having an answer now - Yes?

You don't need to make excuses, or apologise or write paragraphs long explanations. Just admit that that is what you're doing. What's so hard about that?

Or does it bother you just a wee bit that in the face of mounting evidence, a growing number of scientists are losing confidence in a material explanation?

I am curious though:

I said:“The evidence is that nothing natural existed at the singularity.”

Are you saying that there WAS something material in existence at the singularity?

I said:“The evidence is that NOTHING comes into being without an external cause.”

Are you saying that there are things that DO come into being without an external cause?

I said:“The evidence is that the external cause for the beginning of the universe could not have been natural.”

Are you saying that there IS evidence for a natural cause in existence at the singularity?

I said:"The evidence is that if the cause was not natural then it must have been outside of or super natural."

Are you saying that everything CAN come from nothing by nothing? Or that the universe brought itself into existence; that matter created itself; that matter preexisted itself?

Or are you relying on one of the dozen or more atheist origin of the universe mythologies being tossed around by those desperate to avoid the metaphysical implications of Big Bang Cosmology?

Supernatural explanations being found wrong 100% of the time so far don't mean that THIS TIME maybe it couldn't be supernatural. Maybe you should be a deist. It's obvious that the gods have no effect on the universe now but maybe billions of years ago, they did.Ya never know.

Makarios, your profile tells us that you are a retired counsellor. What exactly was your speciality?

I found it amazing that you don't know the scientific process on which all science activities are based. (see http://atheistbibleforum.blogspot.com/2009/10/is-science-religion-for-atheists.html) If you don't understand the Big Bang Theory, please don't say things about it.

No decent scientist ever claims that nothing created everything. There is an investigation ongoing to find out whether dark matter and dark energy would explain the initial singularity.

Since retiring, I’ve tried to stick to strictly Marriage and Family although for the last ten years before retiring I ran an outpatient Mental Health Clinic. It was funded by the Health District.=============

“I found it amazing that you don't know the scientific process on which all science activities are based.”

Ya, right. And next you’ll tell me that you abide by the scientific process in all your “logical” thinking. Pfft! =============

“No decent scientist ever claims that nothing created everything.”

Of course not because it’s absurd, illogical, incoherent - just like atheism itself. However, when something from outside of nature is not allowed to exist, that’s all that is left. Nothing existed at the singularly so “nothing” created everything.

No decent scientist would say that dark matter or dark energy came from nothing or that dark matter or dark energy created itself or brought itself into existence, but that is exactly what atheist driven science is trying to tell us.===============“What about "nothing created god"? “